Our experience growing fruit
has covered 21 years at one location (Lindsey Drive)
and the past 9
years here in our subdivision yard (Wesley Road). At
the previous
location we had 85 fruit trees and were testing many
varieties of pear,
fig, persimmon, mayhaw , and others. From the
experiences gained over
those years, when the flood of Hurricane Rita caused
us to re-locate to
this smaller property, we planted our favorite trees
of each
kind.

We enjoy gardening year round
here in South Louisiana with it's fairly mild winters.
We grow trees
and flowering shrubs native to the area and also a
fruit orchard
numbering some 22 trees and several
muscadine and grape vines
as well as Blueberry bushes . These are some of the
fruit we grow:

Mayhaw

ClasseyMayhaw was
one of my favorites.

Mayhaw fruit is
native to several of the Deep South states and really
thrives here. The
jelly made from the Mayhaw is in our opinion the best
jelly made . We
also use the fruit to make pies, syrup, and a fine
wine. The range of
the mayhaw is from Northern Florida to East Texas, and
from the Gulf to
about the South Arkansas border. The fruit is very low
chill and
because of this can not be reliably grown on a
commercial basis North
of the Louisiana /Arkansas state line. This fruit is
not familiar to
most gardeners but a commercial fruit juice extraction
factory, Grant
Fruit Processing, is now operating in Pollock,
Louisiana and
it is possible to order juice from several varieties
of fruit. My
friend Billy Craft of Woodworth Louisiana, is a
co-author of the book
entitledMayhaws a guide to orchard production
and
propagation.

The Gem Mayhaw tree and twelve other mayhaw trees were removed by the new owner of our former home.

The
Mayhaw jelly is the best jelly in my opinion and
is the
Louisiana State jelly.

I
have planted two Maxine Mayhaw trees and a new Red
Champ, and a grafted Classey Mayhaw in my
current
orchard.

Our first harvest of
Maxine Mayhaw was 2013First harvest of Red Champ Mayhaw was 2014

Fill bottle to
1/4 inch from top, cap with new seal lid not
quite
tight .

After
filling
the bottles, place in boiling water bath (with
just
a slight and steady boil) with the water level at
least one inch higher than the bottles and
allow ten
minutes boiling time.
Carefully lift the bottles onto a towel and cover with a
second towel
to cool
slowly. At this time you may hear a snapping sound as
the bottles begin
to
seal.

I
have always wondered what mayhaw jelly would
taste like with
less
sugar or sugar free. In the traditional jelly recipe
you will notice
that there are 4 cups of Mayhaw juice but five cups of
sugar.

Are
we
tasting the true taste of the mayhaw fruit or
mostly
sugar?
I must say that I love the taste of traditional
Mayhaw jelly
and
have grown mayhaw for the past twenty eight years. But
I always
wondered if I could find a low sugar recipe that would
have a lesser
amount of sugar to allow the true mayhaw flavor to be
prominent. A
jelly that I would be proud to share with friends and
family.

Experiments
with so
called "low sugar" pectins were basically failures.
Several years ago I saw an ad and I decided to order
some Pomona
Universal Pectin and try the low sugar jelly using
their product. After
all these years I took that product off the pantry
shelf and made a
batch. Nothing I know of can produce as good a
mayhaw as the
traditional recipe. If one still wants to have a decent
mayhaw jelly but with lower sugar due to health
concerns my
new Recipe is below . This one removes 60% of the
sugar.

I
have now tested several "no sugar" Mayhaw Jelly
recipes. With
a
lot of research and five batches created with
the
most
popular non-sugar "sweetners' and all thrown away, I
have decided that
there are no good no sugar Mayhaw recipes in my
opinion.

Travis

Notes:

I
avoid the use of aluminum pots with most foods. This
is because I have
observed
aluminum pots becoming very shiny inside after
processing tomatoes or
high acid
fruit. This is caused by aluminum leeching out of the
pot . Somehow I
do not
feel that would be a healthy thing.

Once again
remember that
everything on this
web page is my personal opinion.

Jujube

This is one
branch of a Jujube tree that we named Abbeville at
the old
place. The Jujube is a wonderful fruit that is unknown
to many growers
in the South. Also known as the Chinese Date, the jujube
fruit , about
the size of a small egg. We use the fruit to make a
delicious syrup,
then dehydrate the used fruit to make candied dates.
These candied
dates have a shelf life , in a zip lock bag , of over a
year. The fruit
is also eaten fresh from the tree when the color changes
from green to
mahogany. We also grew several other varieties.

We have
settled on the variety Li due to it's large size which
makes it easier
to dehydrate and process.

I continue to
be amazed at the Li jujube that bears at a very young
age and goes on
to produce very large crops.

We have also
planted the variety Jin but the spot is a little too wet
and I will be
raising the tree and putting it on a raised top soil bed
about a foot
high. Here with seventy inches rain a year the young
tree is in danger
of root rot. My trees are always supplied by Roger
Meyer of
Fountain Valley, CA

li
Jujube 16 inches high with 20 fruit in it's 18th
month in the
ground.

The crop of the
above tiny Li Jujube tree removed prematurely due to the
danger of the
limbs breaking.

A
branch from the Li Jujube the third year with
the tree now at
over eight feet tall.

Unloading
the dehydrator with candied dates (Jujube). In the
process we also end
up with about two quarts of Jujube Syrup.

Muscadine

This is the
Ison muscadine which is one of the results of a 50 year
breeding
program to improve the quality of the native muscadine
by the Ison
family of Brooks Georgia. We also grow Black Beauty,
another
of their wonderful muscadine varieties here in our
orchard.

Figs

We
have grown
figs for the past 30 years, 21 years at a previous
location and 9
years here . The Fig family are everywhere
here in South
Louisiana. Of all the varieties Celeste
is by far
the most common. The Alma Fig seems to be more cold
tolerant .
We also grew five other varieties at our
previous location
and have found that the LSU Purple fruits very late
in the year well
after the others has stopped producing. This allows
us to spread the
harvest over several months. We eat the fruit fresh
from the tree ,
make delicious preserves, and wonderful fig tarts.
We had
added Improved Celeste and Hollier in the final
years there.

Nine years
ago we moved to our current, and much smaller
location, due to Hurricane Rita and the flood
that it
brought. We
planted two Celeste, one Black Mission, one LSU Gold,
and a LSU
Purple Fig which is my favorite of all the figs.
We are also growing the Italian Honey Fig in a large
container. We find it
hard
to use all the figs we produce and always give some to
friends.

Grapes

This
is Champanel, my favorite grape for wine.. These grapes
are very tart
and well suited to making wine, and bear very heavy
crops every year..

Persimmon

Here is some
of the fruit from our Saijo tree. This young tree is
only nine years
old now and had more than a hundred fruit in it's first
year to
produce fruit (at three years since planting) . This
variety is dehydrated while still firm and when it
is fully yellow. This makes a premium dried fruit with a
remarkable
sweet taste.

We also grow
Fuyu persimmon here in our orchard . Fuyu is a nonastringent
persimmon and is eaten fresh from the tree when it turns
orange color
and is still firm. These are considered by us to need nospraying here at our place.

Blue
Berries

We
have four adult (8 years old) in the
orchard. The large fruit crop from these
bushes each year is hard to
believe .

Pear

Leona Pear July 4, 2004

Southern Bartlett Pear is
an unknown local variety named by my late friend
Larry Brown.

I am presently
chairman of the Nafex Southern Pear Interest Group.
Nafex is the North
American Fruit Explorers which is a three thousand
member
amateur fruit growing organization. We grow many
different fruits which
we test for adaptability to our individual areas. We
publish a
quarterly publication called Pomona. I have included a
link to Nafex on
this page.

Citrus
trees

When we bought
the property, in December 2005. Mike Conlin, the
previous owner had
planted a Louisiana Sweet orange in the spot
where we put our
new driveway. In the meantime Mr. Mike passed away
after a battle with
cancer. We carefully lifted the plant into a container
and in November
2008 we planted it in the yard. This year (2015)
the tree is
once again loaded with fruit . We love our
living memorial to
Educator and Coach Mike Conlin

Mr. Mike is the variety Hamlin Sweet. This is the 2015 crop

Planted
November 2008

Our
favorite citrus
is the Page Mandarin

2006
Planting

Old
reliable Louisiana favorite

2006
planting

Washington Navel tree February
2014 Planting

Myer
Lemon rooted from a cutting in February 2014

Due to the very tender nature of the wonderful Meyer we are growing this one in a 15 gallon pot.

Orange
Jam is a low-sugar or low-honey cooked jam made with
Pomona’s Pectin. Feel free to use any
type of oranges or a mixture of oranges – valencia,
navel, cara cara,
blood
oranges, mandarins, tangerines, satsumas,
mineolas.

Pomona’s
Pectin contains no sugar or preservatives and jells
reliably with low amounts of any sweetener. See below
for where to buy.

Yield:
4 to 5 cups

Before
You Begin:
Prepare calcium water. To do this, combine ½ teaspoon
calcium powder
(in the
small packet in your box of Pomona’s pectin) with ½
cup water in a
small, clear
jar with a lid. Shake well. Extra calcium water should
be stored in the
refrigerator for future use.

1.
Wash jars, lids, and bands. Place jars in canner, fill
canner 2/3 full with water, bring to a boil. Turn off
heat, cover, and
keep
jars in hot canner water until ready to use. Place
lids in water in a
small
sauce pan; cover and heat to a low boil. Turn off heat
and keep lids in
hot
water until ready to use.

5.
Bring fruit mixture to a full boil. Add
pectin-sweetener
mixture, stirring vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes to
dissolve the pectin
while
the jam comes back up to a boil. Once the jam returns
to a full boil,
remove it
from the heat.

A.
Use a citrus juicer that renders both juice and pulp,
but
holds back seeds and membranes.

B.
Peel, section, remove seeds, cut off any especially
fibrous membrane, and chop enough oranges to yield 4
cups of chopped
orange.
Put in a sauce pan with 1/3 cup of water. Bring to a
boil, reduce heat,
cover,
and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.
Measure out 4 cups
of
simmered orange mixture for making the jam.

The
Southern Fruit Fellowship is another fine group of
fruit growers
primarily in the South . They publish a
quarterly newsletter
with dues of $15.00 per year. To join write :Southern
Fruit Fellowshipc/o
Rhetta Davis2051
Evergreen DriveShreveport,
LA 71118

You
can also click on the SFF page below to see the
membership page

One of the many visitors
to our numerous hibiscus plants

We
also grow many different flowering shrubs and trees
here at home. Here
are some of our favorites.